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Macross 7
is a 1994 anime television series created by Studio Nue and Ashi Production. It is a sequel to the original ''Super Dimension Fortress Macross'' and ''Macross Plus'', taking place a few decades after the events of the Space War I, and follows a cast of mostly new characters. The series ran from October 16, 1994 to September 24, 1995, and 49 episodes were aired. While it has been distributed in the other parts of the world, it currently has not been licensed for North America. The series is best remembered for its music. Over a dozen musical albums have been released by the fictional band Fire Bomber, along with several character and drama albums. A second idol group, the Jamming Birds, was also featured in the series. A theatrical episode, Macross 7: Ginga ga Ore wo Yondeiru! (Macross 7: The Galaxy's Calling Me!), was released in 1995. Several OVAs were also released following the success of the series, including ''Macross 7: Encore'' and later, ''Macross Dynamite 7''. In 2012, a crossover movie retelling the Macross 7 events by Macross F characters, Macross FB7 Galaxy Flow Soul: Listen to My Song!, was released. A manga side-story, Macross 7: Trash, set within the same period of events was also released. It was serialized for 52 monthly chapters in Shōnen Ace magazine from October 1994 to May 2001, then published as tankōbon from 1995 to 2001 by Kadokawa Shoten. A spinoff manga, Macross Dynamite 7: Mylene Beat was released and took place during the events of the OVA series, Macross Dynamite 7. Another spinoff manga, ''Macross 7th Chord'', is set several years after the end of the original series. Prologue AD 2009 - The human race first encountered an alien race. The Space War which followed with this race of giants, known as the Zentradi, nearly devastated the Earth. March, 2010 - The war ended. In April of that same year, a new United Earth government was inaugurated and humans began to follow the path of coexistence with the alien Zentradi. Those Zentradi who wished to, used micron technology to return their bodies to human size. September, 2011 - The Earth UN Government launched a deep space colonization plan for the purpose of preserving the species. September, 2012 - The extreme long-range transport SDF-2 Megaroad-01 set out, carrying the first colonists. September, 2030 - The gigantic Megaroad-class ships were replaced by the first of the super high-capacity New-Macross class colonization ships, whose fleets were capable of carrying up to one million colonists. 2038 - The Macross 7 fleet, built around the seventh of the new Macross-class ships, left for the center of the galaxy carrying the 37th wave of colonists. The year is now 2045... Synopsis Thirty five years after the events of the First Interstellar War, the Macross 7 leads the 37th Colonial Fleet on a colonization mission into deep space. The series focuses on the fleet's encounters with a hostile alien force known as the Varauta Army and the Protodevlin, along with the rise of the rock and roll band, Fire Bomber, whose members include mysterious Basara Nekki (lead singer), Mylene Flare Jenius (seventh daughter of Maximilian Jenius and Milia Fallyna Jenius), Ray Lovelock, and full blooded Zentradi Veffidas Feaze. The fleet's flagship is the ''Macross 7'', which is actually composed of two parts: Battle 7 and City 7. The Battle 7 is a fully transformable battle carrier located at the fore section of the ship, and is capable of separating itself from City 7 during battle. The Battle 7, along with the rest of the fleet surrounding the Macross 7, is captained by Maximilian Jenius. The much larger back section of the two part ship is known as City 7 and is the main civilian population center of the fleet, containing a population in excess of one million people. The mayor of City 7 is the estranged wife of Maximilian Jenius, Milia Fallyna Jenius. City 7 features a "shell" that can close in order to protect the civilian population during battle. Plot Journey To The Galactic Center In the seventh year of their mission, the Macross 7 fleet encounters an unknown alien enemy. This new mysterious enemy is composed of heavily modified Valkyries led by a man named Gigile. In the first encounter, the Macross 7 engages the enemy with squadrons of their own Valkyries. This conventional warfare does little to stop the attack however. The enemy's tactics are different from the average rogue, or 'uncultured', Zentradi that are encountered in space travel. In the first battle with the Macross 7 fleet, the new enemy's main tactic is to extract an energy form called Spiritia from the Valkyrie pilots, leaving them in a vegetative state. Musician Basara Nekki has a modified red state of the art VF-19 "Fire" Valkyrie of his own, and goes out to engage the Varauta Army of his own accord. His VF-19 has an unusual control scheme that mimics a guitar, and he does not attack the enemy with weapons, choosing instead to fire speaker pods into enemy mecha, and playing his songs to the enemy. In the first few encounters, Basara's music does little to drive the enemy away, and the Macross 7 fleet's ace pilot, Gamlin Kizaki is bewildered and annoyed by Basara's endeavor, claiming that it interferes with the other pilots during combat. Vampire Crisis It is eventually revealed that Basara Nekki was given the Valkyrie by his friend and bandmate Ray Lovelock , who is a former UN Spacy Valkyrie pilot, and part of secret project inspired by the effectiveness of Lynn Minmay 's singing in the original war with the Zentradi. Eventually project head, Dr. Chiba , discovers that Spiritia deprived vegetative pilots can be revived. By playing them Fire Bomber's music the patients eventually wake up and return to normal. Eventually the enemy infiltrates City 7 and begins extracting Spiritia from civilians. Due to the secretive nature of the infiltrators and the state of their victims, they are dubbed 'vampires' by the public forum. One of the 'vampires' is captured and revealed to be a human from an earlier lost space mission. A brainwashing mechanism found inside the helmet of the 'vampire' is used to control them. The captured prisoner is exposed to Fire Bomber's music and regains his memories. The prisoner, now revealed to be a Blue Rhinoceros elite squadron pilot, Irana Hayakawa, tells his story. Harakawa stated that the Blue Rhinoceros was a team sent to investigate the fourth planet of the Varautan system, which apparently holds Protoculture secrets, or even descendants of the Protoculture themselves. They were supposed to rendezvous with the United Forces Advisor Ivano Gunther, only to find that Gunther was possessed by an alien entity called the Protodeviln. The entire mission force is taken by the Protodeviln and used to assemble the new Supervision Army that is attacking the Macross 7 fleet. Protodeviln Attack City 7 is stolen by the Protodeviln, and for a short period of time it is separated from the rest of the fleet. Eventually they are rescued. After this the elite fighter squadron Diamond Force is permanently assigned to City 7 as a special defense force. The Sound Force is created by the UN Spacy, and all the members of Fire Bomber are given their own specially modified Valkyries. They are sent out to confront the enemy with their music whenever the fleet is attacked. The Macross 7 fleet gathers information in an attempt to understand their new enemy, while Geperuniti, the leader of the Protodeviln, begins to take steps towards achieving his goal of creating a Spiritia Farm, capable of producing an endless supply of the energy force that the Protodeviln depend on for life. With a generous supply of Spiritia being collected by the 'vampires', other Protodevilns begin to awaken from their sleep. One of them, named Sivil, goes to attack the Macross fleet. During the first encounter between Basara and Sivil, the effectiveness of his music was proven when it drove Sivil away. Sivil becomes interested in Basara, whom she refers to as the Anima Spiritia. Gigile leaves the Protodeviln fleet and joins the 'vampires' in City 7. Eventually due to constant contact with Basara and his music, Sivil begins to lose strength. She hides away in a separate "forest" section of City 7, and eventually goes into a state of hibernation, encasing herself in a force field. Basara discovers Sivil and sings to her daily in the hope of waking her up. Gigile watches Basara from the shadows, and collects Spiritia in order to help revive Sivil. Sound Force Around this time, Dr. Chiba discovers that Basara's singing creates what he calls Sound Energy. He creates the 'Sound Boosters', an attachment for the Sound Force Valkyries, in order to amplify and control the projection of this energy in battle. At the same time, the military forms a spin-off idol group to combat the growing threat of the enemy, the Jamming Birds. They prove a poor replacement to the fairly unreliable Basara. Meanwhile, another colonization fleet, the Macross 5, makes contact with the Macross 7 fleet. The Macross 5 fleet has found a suitable planet to inhabit, and christened it as the planet Rax . However, soon the Macross 7 fleet loses all contact with the Macross 5. Arriving at Rax, they find the whole Macross 5 fleet decimated, but oddly few dead bodies are found. They assume that the people of the Macross 5 fleet were in fact taken captive by the Protodeviln. The Protodeviln fleet surrounds the planet forcing the Macross 7 fleet to remain on its surface. Sivil Stasis At this time the military found out about Sivil being in the forest section of City 7 and takes her away to be studied. Gigile rampages in his Battroid in an attempt to find and rescue Sivil. Together he and Basara managed to awakened Sivil, who escapes from the laboratory. Basara decides to search the planet for Sivil. Finally, he and Gigile find her inside an active volcano. Basara begins singing and manages to awaken her. When Sivil is awakened, the volcano suddenly begin to sink into the ocean. After the dust clears a ruin rises from sea. The ruins are investigated by the non micronized Zentradi Exsedol Folmo, who is now the top science advisor in the Macross 7 fleet. He concludes that it is a ruin from the Protoculture. The ruins reveal the mysterious genesis of the Protodeviln and how they were defeated by the Protoculture using something called the Anima Spiritia. In the end, the ruins are destroyed by Geperuniti's fleet and another pair of Protodeviln called Glavil and Gavil. This happens before the Macross crew can find out exactly what Anima Spiritia is. Spiritia Dreaming Geperuniti now views Sivil and Gigile as a threat to his plans of creating a Spiritia Farm and orders his Protodeviln henchmen, Valgo, Gavil and Glavil to pursue and kill them. In the ensuing battle Gigile takes on his true form, and begins to sing Basara's music. He discovers that he can actually generate his own Spiritia this way. Gigile defends Sivil to his death, causing the entire planet Rax to explode. Basara and Sivil mourn for Gigile while the battle with Geperuniti intensifies. The UN Government of Earth gives the permission to Captain Maximilian Jenius to use the restricted reaction weaponry against the Protodeviln. Captain Jenius forms a plan called Operation Stargazer in which a few elite volunteer pilots will accompany him to the fourth planet of the Varautan system, now known to be the base of Protodeviln operations. The mission is to stealthily attack the planet and plant the Reaction Weaponry in the chamber which houses the Protodevilns' bodies. Mayor Milia Fallyna Jenius is given temporary command of the fleet during the mission. Amongst the volunteers for this mission are the entire Sound Force. Basara decides to do things his way and starts singing as soon as he reaches the planet. Surrounded by heavy fire, Diamond Force leader Gamlin Kizaki decides to focus on defending the Sound Force. He eventually crashes his Valkyrie unto Gavil's FBz-99G Zaubergern mecha, destroying it, but also appearing to be killed himself. When all looks lost the real plan of Operation Stargazer is revealed as Captain Jenius folds into the battle in a new advanced VF-22S Sturmvogel II Valkyrie carrying the reaction weaponry. He races into the heart of the enemy stronghold, plants the weapon, and orders everyone to flee. But the mission is thwarted when in the last minute when the ingenious Geperuniti folds the reaction weapon to the location of Operation Stargazer group's Northampton-class frigate, destroying it. Gamlin Saves The Day The surviving members of the operation are captured by the Protodeviln, but they eventually manage to escape their holding cells. Just then Gamlin reappears in a Varautan Mecha, and helps defend the escapees against Gavil's attacks. While escaping, they discovered the Protodevilns have imprisoned the captured Macross 5 people, encasing them in a crystal-like chamber, and extracting their Spiritia. Basara tries to save them, but his efforts are in vain and they are forced to evacuate the area before Geperuniti destroys them. They escape using one of the Varautan space cruisers. After escaping, Gamlin was possessed by Gavil, and he takes his VF-17D Nightmare and goes on a rampage through the Macross 7. The Sound Force were deployed and Basara and Mylene started singing. Gavil then captured Mylene and demands that Basara surrenders to the Protodeviln. Just then, Mylene steps out of her Valkyrie and starts singing, drawing out the possessed Gamlin out of his Valkyrie. Gavil is forced to depart from Gamlin and flees. Zomd and Goram In another battle, the newly awakened Protodeviln twins, Zomd and Goram confronts the Macross 7 Fleet. Bringing along the crystal-like chambers containing the Macross 5 people, Basara's music was turned against him - as his music would serve to regenerate the Spiritia of the captured Macross 5 people, which later would be extracted from them to revive the Protodeviln twins. However, Captain Maximilian Jenius devises a plan to use the fold generators on the chambers and the plan was carried out by Gamlin and Docker, the leader of the Emerald Force. When the chambers are safely folded away, all the ships in the fleet fire their Reaction Weaponries. Although the Protodeviln twins were severely injured, they miraculously regenerated. Basara begins to sing and drives them mad. Sivil shows up and drives the Protodeviln away, but her powers are drained, and she crashes into Battle 7. Basara tries to revive her, but she accidentally drains him of his Spiritia, putting him into a vegetative state. Geperuniti's Final Form In the final part of the series, Geperuniti takes on his true form, which is an enormous Spiritia "Black Hole" t hat will eventually drain the entire universe of Spiritia. Under the command of Captain Maximilian Jenius, Battle 7 folded to the Protodeviln's base, begins to transform in order to fire the Sound Buster - the combination of Song Energy and the Macross Cannon. Firing several rounds of the Sound Buster, the Macross Cannon overloads and explodes. A strange reaction occurs, and Geperuniti begins to lose control of himself. Waves of energy hit Battle 7 and prove to be too powerful for even the pinpoint barrier to withstand. Battle 7 was destroyed and the crews flee to safety. Geperuniti begins to extract Spiritia from everyone, even folding the rest of the Macross 7 fleet, including City 7 in order to extract more Spiritia. Geperuniti even goes against his own kind, killing Zomd and Goram. Gavil and Gravil, then, goes against Geperuniti, trying to convince him to stop. At the very last minute, Basara awakens when everyone begins singing to him, and goes out to fight Geperuniti. Together with Sivil they sing to Geperuniti until he also begins to sing. Geperuniti realizes that he can create his own Spiritia through music, and takes on a new form. He and his host of remaining Protodeviln then leave this galaxy to explore the rest of the universe. Sivil tells Basara that she will always remember his songs, and goes off with her kind. Episodes Characters Humans * Basara Nekki (Nobutoshi Hayashi, Yoshiki Fukuyama (singing)) * Mylene Flare Jenius (Tomo Sakurai, Chie Kajiura (singing)) * Ray Lovelock (Masashi Sugawara) * Veffidas Feaze (Urara Takano) * Maximilian Jenius (Sho Hayami) * Milia Fallyna Jenius (Eri Takeda) * Exsedol Folmo (Ryunosuke Ohbayashi) * Gamlin Kizaki (Takehito Koyasu) * Akiko Houjoh (Urara Takano) * Michael Johnson (Takehiro Murozono) * Miho Miho (Rio Natsuki) * Sally Saint Ford (Junko Iwao) * Kim Saintlaurent (Iruka Nanami) * Kinryu (Hiroki Takahashi) * Docker (Takashi Nagasako) * Physica S. Fulcrum (Akio Suyama) * Rex (Kaoru Shimamura) * Dr. Chiba (Keiichi Sonobe) * Girl With Flowers (Akiko Nakagawa) Protodeviln * Lord Geppernich (You Inoue) * Gigile (Tomohiro Nishimura) * Sivil (Akiko Nakagawa) * Grabil * Gavil (Akio Suyama) * Valgo (Hiroki Takahashi) * Goram (Arihiro Hase) * Zomd (Rei Igarashi) Mecha *VF-19 Excalibur *VF-17 Nightmare Soundtrack Macross 7 is unique from other Macross titles, as it does not have its own musical score. Instead, it relies heavily on songs by Fire Bomber as its soundtrack. The series also reuses selected BGM tracks and songs from ''Macross II'' and ''Macross Plus'' Ironically, those very songs are what have kept the show from seeing a U.S. release, as the Japanese record companies have allegedly demanded steep licensing costs for them. One of the U.S. licensors commented that the costs were so high that it would require multiple companies just to pay for four episodes at a time. Three Fire Bomber songs ("Totsugeki Love Heart", "My Soul for You" and "Try Again") were reused in episodes of the 2008 series ''Macross Frontier'', as one character, Ozma Lee, is a fan of the band. In this timeline (2059 A.D., thirteen years after Macross 7), Fire Bomber's music is considered by the rest of the Strategic Military Services (SMS) squadron as "oldies". Production The anime was directed by Tetsurō Amino. The anime's original story concept came from original creator Shōji Kawamori with the series composition done by Sukehiro Tomita. Kawamori, of course, also handled the anime's mechanical designs with Kazutaka Miyatake.Miyatake, Kazutaka (2005-06-01). Macross and Orguss Design Works (in Japanese). Japan: Mobic. pp. 47–80. ISBN 4-89601-629-7. Haruhiko Mikimoto designed the characters, as he had been with every series up until then with the exception of Macross Plus. Release The anime aired at every Sunday at 11:00 AM on Mainichi Broadcasting System and Tokyo Broadcasting System from October 10, 1994 to September 9, 1995. Gallery MyleneMylene.jpg|Macross 7 featured on Newtype magazine. Mac7Cover.jpg|Macross 7 on another hobby magazine. MylenePajama.jpg|Mylene Flare Jenius wearing a Gubaba pajama. Macross 7Rock.jpg|Fire Bomber featured on a hobby magazine. Mac7Prod.jpg|Macross 7 production materials art book. M7Calendar.jpg|Calendar featuring Gamlin Kizaki and Basara Nekki. BasaraM7.png|Macross 7 illustration by Haruhiko Mikimoto for Animedia magazine, 1998. Macross 7BlurayPromo.jpg|A new Macross 7 promotional art by Haruhiko Mikimoto for the series' 20th anniversary. Notes & Trivia *The Cat Girl Nuku Nuku TV show has a parody of the show which features a Basara lookalike who sings about saving the universe. See also Manga *''Macross 7: Trash'' *''Macross 7th Chord'' External Links *Macross 7 (TV) at ANN. References